Beyond Compare
by Mitchi Takahashi
Summary: Two of a kind, inside of building with room enough for only one. Conflict and stalking, love and bickering. How will Beyond Birthday and L survive with each other? AU - Shonen-ai hints.
1. Beyond Hope

BB always wondered if he ever noticed him. The silent boy waiting in the back of his mind, ripping and .scratching at the common label of insanity and normality, the fine line of opposites that drive even the most logistical people to a world of death and destruction. Yes, he had always been like this, overwhelmed with the rush of names, numbers, rushing past him with the days and seconds left of these pitiful lives people fought so hard to protect and continue when really there was no way to get past them. Death.

Everyone faces death at some point in time. He just happened to lend a helping hand. Oh well. It's who he was. He couldn't see his own numbers, couldn't see the name "Beyond Birthday" floating just above him, its red aura cast the same as every other freaking person in this world. No… he was special though. He had to be. He was almost like a Shinigami within his own right wasn't he? Yes; that had to be it. He was like a Shinigami; it was why he had been born with these unexplainable eyes.

It didn't bother him though, nope, not one bit. He was ignored, discarded. A failure; but no, B isn't right, even though he looks like L, he talks like L, he eats like L, he walks like L, he thinks like L. NO HE DESERVED TO BE L! You'd never know how his thoughts raged and his mind swirled with murderous intentions just by looking at him though. No, he seemed as normal as L was. He was a socially retarded genius with no care for the average human; or anyone else for that matter.

Wait, no, that's wrong. Beyond Birthday did care for another person, he cared for him deeply. L was like the moon, the perfect piece to complete the darkness that dwelled within him, but he would never reach. Chuckling quietly to himself he straightened some, his shoulders still sloping downwards to the floor as he walked in long but slow and awkward steps, jerking his limbs to move the way he wished to.

Light blue jeans swished along as he walked, catching on the carpets fibers and tickling the skin of B's feet. It felt perfect when people skirted around him, trying to get away from the scent of blood and strawberry jam. The blood wasn't real though, not until much later in Beyond's life would he have come into contact with blood of his own accord. The scent people claimed he had of this so called blood must have been purely psychological, according to everyone he had observed; it was his eyes that seemed to make him have that copper scent to him. No, that was just what they thought, Birthday had beautiful eyes, he told himself that constantly. It let him see things others would never, and it was natural for him. Like he knew that the brunette boy passing him now with that look of rushed worry would be dying in three days. Who knew from what though?

He stopped. There was someone in his way, with toes curled just like his, gripping the carpet fibers as faded denim gathered in wrinkled rolls and ripples at his ankles and caressed the tops of his feet. Scarlet eyes traveled upwards, taking in the wrinkled white long sleeved shirt just like his, and the naturally wide black eyes, so dark a pupil existed not. Hair spiked in sleepless points, this way and that, just strange enough to look natural. And that skin, it was so pale that he was able to liken it to the moon, bright and perfect, milky in complexion. Though it had was his skin lacked, the shine of health.

Cocking his head to the side with a wide and sly smirk BB shrugged. "It's like looking in a mirror, L."


	2. Beyond Analysis

It wasn't like he had been expecting to come into contact with the candidate he had denied. No, not at all. L had only been out for a short walk, headed to go back to his room and most likely solve a case, eat some cakes and maybe, for once in his life, sleep. He was stopped as he spotted B though, didn't he change dorms or something? Apparently not.

Normally L would have kept a tab on that, but it had seemed so below him at the time, it must have slipped his mind. Hearing those words he let his mouth set in a straight line. "Not nearly."

It was as if the air around them simply congealed at those words, making it hard to breath, to think logically, to even wonder what was going to happen. A sigh escaped his lips as he slide to the side, set on getting by and traveling to his room. Watari should have cake ready for him by now, and if he didn't get there soon, the frosting would begin to harden on him. That was never appetizing. Almost as soon as he moved there was a sadistic chuckle from the boy in front of him and he felt his eyes narrow significantly, about four and a half millimeters over his four centimeter wide sockets, not including the already partially closed top eyelid and the two millimeter encroachment from the bottom lid. "Out of my way B."

Than was his command, just to move out of the goddamned way so he could get by. Apparently that wasn't the plan as a hand reached out, fingertips touching his chin and trailing across his jaw line, a thumb pressing against his soft lips. It was new, being touched like this, being touched in general, and L couldn't help it, his face craned to feel more of the touch, pure scientific interest as to what was going on, or at least that's what he told himself. Jerking his head back he lashed out, pushing Beyond Birthday from the space around him and glaring heavily, striding past him and around a corner of the hall. It might have been his imagination, but he thought hear could hear a soft laugh following him down the empty corridor.

Growling softly to himself he scratched at his thigh, the coarse denim lending a helping hand as he assaulted the itching area with fingernails. _Much better, _he though to himself with a blink, before he could stop his thoughts there, his mind began to wander. _Why did B touch me like that? God, it felt so intimate. Wait… I was always eighty-four percent sure that B was straight. Then again I had never seen him carry out a liking with anyone save for that young girl Megumi. She failed the detective test as well. With this current information it would appear that he was gay, I don't have enough research to support an analysis like such at this point in time, but I should watch my ass. _ He sighed, not realizing the joke he had made in his own thoughts, as his hand rested on the cold sleek brass of his door knob, gripping it with long and pale digits. The door clicked and squeaked softly as it swung open on its new hinges, revealing the dark room inside.

He could barely make out the outline of his four poster bed, illuminated by the open laptop on the floor behind it, the keyboard barely visible under the high bed skirt. Striding forward he moved to the left some, his fingertips sliding over the back of a chair before he maneuvered his hips just right, bringing his foot onto the cushioning of the seat. Lifting himself into a crouch his thumbnail quickly found it's way between his lip, tapping the break between two teeth a sliding along the keratin's length before sliding back with a jerk and being caught between his teeth and gnawed upon. It was his thinking pose, lifting his already high IQ another forty percent, roughly of course, and allowing him to be able to organize the many thoughts that plagued his always questing and curious mind as his right hand reached out to the desk before him, hitting the power button on the monitor as a plate with well prepared and perfectly portioned strawberry shortcake was set before him, a silver fork arching from it's frosted depths. Blue and white flickered before his eyes and a login screen was presented to him and he smirked, chicken pecking in a simple word "Glitter". Don't ask.

It was an old password, coined for the simple fact that no one would guess it, coined for the pure fact that he liked the small circles of multi-colored clear plastic with a coating of light catching enamel. After all, a handful in the library could piss anyone off. So, now, back to his thoughts. Why was B seemingly interested in him? Was he even interested? What had compelled him to touch L like he had… what was he planning seemed like the most important question among the many though.

B was like L. They had already concluded that. Taking into account L's own personality, coupled with B's, then add in everything able to be withdrawn from his actions and both of their competitive natures it seemed likely the B had a plan in mind. A plan that involved L as a main player and challenged him to a game of mind-play. It seemed like it had been forever since L had done anything as such a thing. He couldn't wait for the official invitation into the play.

Smiling a bit to himself he rocked back on the balls of his feet and taped the tip of his form against his lip in thought. A mind game, it had been so long since he had been challenged with a good one, he was excited for once. Sometimes he was such a child.


	3. Beyond Just A Prank

So it was up to B to make the first move, he was fine with that. He was just figuring out how to reach that spot in L that would make him tick, get him pissed, make him want to win. It was such a fun thing, playing with people, that B was excited to be able to play with L. And oh, that crane of L's head against his finger tips earlier, it was what, to use a cliché, dreams are made of. If only there had been some form of sound, some other form of recognition of his touch, like a mewl from those slightly parted lips and spell bound eyes. Anything that could have told him the tile of his head, the pressure applied to his hand, was more then a cold calculation or a observation of the touch.

Ok B, no more fantasizing, concentrate. It was almost cruel, the relationship between the two that was; so much possibility of being something close and special but ending up as rivals. It sucked. Shaking his head, Beyond Birthday sighed and rolled his shoulders some, his knees digging into his chest as he reached forward and began to type on the computer provided to him. Hacking into L's computer was impossible, even he recognized that fact, but Whammy cable in only one room, a delightfully difficult possibility.

That could wait though, he wasn't in the mood to challenge L just yet. No, he had much more to do before hand, planning and the such. His thumb rubbed against his lips and the memory of pressing the opposable digit to L's lips sprang to his memory, and he butted his tongue out hesitantly. Did his thumb taste like L?

Apparently not. It tasted like strawberry jam but there was something there now, something else. Licking the tip of his thumb again he smiled; it tasted like frosting. B never ate frosting.

Forcing himself to the drop thumb away from his lips, B looked around and spotted a small bottle of glitter. Heh, he knew just the thing to do.

L frowned, looking around in his room. Some thing was amiss. Stepping inside he could see nothing, just his four poster bed, illuminated yet again by the never turned off laptop that sat in the exact same position it had been in before. So, instead of continuing to search with what seemed like no productivity, L did something he had never done before.

He flicked on the light switch, and spotted what was wrong. Glitter. Everywhere. His room seemed to sparkle as the light glinted off of any and everything. Hell, even his carpet looked like a fairy had come in and vomited over it. L… L had been pranked.

Near had been shuffling past in his-shoulders-back-but-I-still-look-like-L-way when he came to a dead stop. His hero was standing in his doorway, not even standing, more like he was frozen. With the light on. Why had he turned the light on?

"Ah… L?" he quested, his voice soft and hesitant. It would take roughly .06 seconds for the verbal address to reach L's ears, but it took several minutes afterwards to get a visual acknowledgement. Whatever was wrong was horribly wrong. He put a foot forward hesitantly, then another step. Soon he was next to his hero; that was when he froze as well. "L, why is your room… sparkling?" he asked with an air of disbelief.

L shook his head slowly. B was the first culprit that came to mind, but he couldn't be sure, he had no proof and he knew he wouldn't find any. Stepping forward his foot kicked up a cloud of glitter, it was layered on thickly. He grimaced a bit, great, just what he needed, to sparkle.

B was pleased with himself; how he had managed to do it was purely coincidental. Watari had followed L to wherever they had gone for once, instead of posing the problem of luring him away for B. Picking a lock was easy, and with no personal alarm system he didn't have to worry as he set the basket down on the end of the bed, careful not to leave wrinkles in the comforter's fabric as he withdrew two bottles of white glitter. Popping the tops he smiled cutely, and tipped them over.

Now the deed was done, and B was satisfied for now. His fingers clicked nicely on the keyboard as he started the cantankerous job of getting into the digital cable line without manual help. It would take a bit of time, he knew that much, and he had a few days he had planned to spread it over. His dark eyes spotted a small sparkle on his pinky and he frowned, attempting to wipe it off on the edge of the desk.

It stayed.

No, B didn't want to sparkle like he could already envision L was going to. Rubbing it more fiercely he glared at the small circle of light catching plastic. After several minutes of scratching at it, the circle slipped off, and right under a finger nail. Ok, this was ridiculous. At this rate he'd never rid himself of this blemish on his persons.

Calm down Beyond, just… get rid of it. That simple, get rid of it. How? He chewed a bit on his bottom lip and glared at the sparkle, just barely hidden by his nail, and scraped at it, hoping to lift it up and out of his nail. It pushed it farther, and that kinda hurt. He grimaced and shook his thumb some, when he pulled it back for inspection, the glitter had moved to the back of his hand.

He was never going to get rid of this thing was he? Rubbing at it he poked his tongue out between his lips. It still refused to come off. In an act of final desperation, he licked at it. It came off right away, and he barely even felt it on the tip of his tongue. Glitter was non-toxic right? Yes, it was, or at least this brand in particular was, so he swallowed it.

Why hadn't he tried that before?


	4. Beyond Revenge

L tapped his fingers against his desk's edge lightly. Chewing on his lip instead of his thumb, he stared at the white paint of his wall, dyed a not quite shade of blue-grey by the laptop before him. He couldn't concentrate on anything but B. He couldn't even eat cake and taste it like before, not until he managed to get his revenge.

Blowing on the top of his cake, he knocked away a few of the remaining pieces of glitter he had left in his room, stabbing at the slice with his fork in anger.

Chicken pecking with his other hand, he typed in his new password, 'Rawr'. What could he say? Glitter pissed him off right now. Growling as that memory sprung to his mind, he cast a quick look around his room again, as if his new rival was going to pop out of the dark and attack him with a bottle of glitter personally. It had been three hours that he was stuck in the library while they cleaned his room with high powered vacuums, and washed all his clothes. That bastard had even layered the pages of his books with the damn party product.

He hated B right now.

Absolutely hated him.

Noise from his monitor caught his attention, and he looked at it sharply, seeing the girl he was keeping tabs on in her room. A laptop sat on her lap and she had a small smirk on her lips. She was up to something again, something she hadn't done for a while most likely.

Clicking away on the keyboard, he zoomed in on her, splitting the screen to show different angles as he worked on another laptop to have a live feed of her computer onto a free monitor. It didn't take long. A pile of web pages popped up on the screen, giving the URLs for multiple sites, all of them speaking of more sites which told of ancient myths or gods. She was researching something.

Sighing, he looked back to the video feeds and shook his head slowly, this girl was rather disappointing to tell the truth. She sat on her laptop for most of the day with her lights off, staring at the screen and using fake IP addresses to spy on others, all the while neglecting the world around her, school work, and the possibility that she might have the potential to be a regular teen… For some reason he felt like that life style seemed familiar.

Shrugging to himself, he turned away from the screen and chewed on the end of a thumbnail, sighing deeply and ignoring the remaining bites of his cake.

Revenge was back in his mind, and he knew just the thing to pull off, his dark eyes focused on the shiny brass handle of the bathroom door.

B walked slowly, his mind working overdrive on what he needed to do in order to complete his hack, and put the first step of his master plan into action. Wiping at his lower lip with his thumb, he blinked and nudged open his door with a curled toe, blinking as something wet hit the top of his head with a soft 'plink'.

He froze.

Eyes widened as he reached over, wasting no time in debating whether he could find out what it was without his light, and clicked the switch. His carpet was soaked, as well as his bed and dresser. Thankfully, who ever had done this had thought to cover his computers and such with plastic sheets, all of which were a chorus of soft plinks as the ceiling continued dripping on them.

Fighting the ruge to gulp, he made himself look up. Masses upon masses of wet paper towels clung to the ceiling and parts of the higher up walls, suds and water dripping from the newer mounds slowly.

His room looked like a fucking bat cave.

Fury rose up in his chest, making his mind go blank for a moment before he realized something. This was simply L's revenge.

Coolness erupted like a volcano in his chest, making him smile and hang his head. That meant L had been in his room, had spent time on B and B alone in order to hatch a plan against him. That meant he had his idol's attention.

With his mind somewhere else completely, B hit the call button for a janitor, smiling to himself in an innocent looking way.

It was time to show his moon, just how wonderful the dark could be.


End file.
